Hindsight
by The Prickly Pineapple
Summary: Kakashi looks back at the mission to Wave country and comes to some realizations. He gets his act together and takes his role as Team 7's sensei seriously.
1. Chapter 1

**Here's a new story. I haven't really seen this premise done much before, so tell me what you guys think.**

**Chapter 1**

As Team 7 walked on their way back to Konoha – Kakashi had decided to forgo tree hopping so that he could have time to think – Kakashi's head was buried in his little orange book like usual. Unusual however was the fact that Kakashi wasn't focused on his book at all. He was looking back on his team's first C-rank mission. And he was disappointed. Disappointed in himself.

They weren't ready for this mission, and in hindsight, they were all lucky that they survived. _Even I got a little lucky_. Zabuza was listed as an A-rank ninja in the Bingo Book. Back when Kakashi was an ANBU captain, he had been listed as an S-rank himself. He shouldn't have had any trouble taking out an A-rank. The rate at which an A-rank is better than a B-rank is better than a C-rank and so on is linear. Thus, a low A-rank could have a tough fight against a high B-rank.

The gap between A-rank and S-rank was enormous. There is a reason why S-rank nukenin are pretty much left to their own devices. A high S-rank can wipe the floor with an ANBU black ops squad with little to no injury.

There were stories of the Third Great Shinobi War about S-rank ninja being sent on their own to take out an enemy position. Jaraiya had been posted temporarily with a platoon returning to Konoha from the border of Tsuchi and Kusa which had been ambushed by a Squadron of Iwa ninja. Having heard that Jaraiya was traveling with the platoon, Iwa had sent 3 teams of A-rank jounin. As the Iwa ninja caught up to the group, Jaraiya urged them onwards and turned to fight them. No one is sure exactly how he fought that battle, but when the Konoha ninja were forced to make camp, Jaraiya wandered in with a couple cuts and bruises and part of his hair singed. Thinking that the Iwa ninja had been simply held off and were regrouping, the platoon Commander was about to call out the order to pack up when Jaraiya simply stepped past him and said, "Don't worry about them. We're good."

Being an ANBU captain that was considered a top prospect for the position of ANBU Commander, Kakashi himself had been sent frequently to assassinate elite, enemy ninja. He had never been caught in any of those missions. He frowned. While his specialty was assassination, he would have had no problem wiping the floor with Zabuza in a straight fight as well. It was obvious now that he had really let himself get rusty these last few years.

His frown grew when he looked at his team walking a few steps ahead of him. What kind of teacher was he to let them go on a C-rank having taught them little more than teamwork exercises? _They deserve better from me_. It was time to take their training seriously when they got back to Konoha. Kakashi spent the rest of the trip planning their new training regiment. They would hate him for a while, but he didn't mind. They wouldn't die on a mission any time soon if he had anything to say about it.

After they had handed in their mission report to the Hokage, Kakashi had flashed him a message using standard ANBU hand signals: _me, question, imperative. _ The Hokage smiled at them as if he hadn't gotten any of that. "Off you go! Kakashi, stay." The kids walked out the door, bickering as usual. As soon as they had left, the secretary outside had closed the door, knowing that the Hokage wanted privacy. Hiruzen loaded up his pipe and took a puff before saying, "Well? What is it?"

Kakashi put his book away – the Hokage immediately leaned forward. Everyone knew that Kakashi was dead serious when he did that. "They should have died on that mission." The Hokage opened his mouth to reply, but Kakashi cut him off. "_I _should have died."

"Explain."

That one word answer was full of subtext. "They lived up to everything I taught them. Which isn't much, admittedly. I've been lazy and I've overlooked my duty. It's my fault they had to even fight for their lives. As soon as they started having difficulty, I should be stepping in."

The hokage nodded at this. "Indeed. If I remember, you are listed in the Book as an S-rank, yet you were barely able to defeat the _Demon of the Mist_." The accusation in his voice was obvious.

"Yet another reason why all of us would have died without the extraordinary luck we had. When I was a Captain, that fight would have been over in minutes." They both knew that wasn't a boast; just a statement of fact. "If Naruto hadn't used the Kyuubi's chakra, Zabuza's accomplice would have killed all three of them."

The Hokage stood and turned to the window. Puffs of smoke curled around his head for a few minutes before he turned around. "Do you know the reason the council and I agreed on the gennin placed on your team?" The very fact that the Hokage and council agreed on this made Kakashi's eyes widen – the Hokage frequently had to override the council's recommendation. "You have the two most important gennin in this village on your team and you are supposed to be one of the best ninja in this village." The casual use of _supposed to_ made Kakashi visibly flinch. "Your sensei would be ashamed of you." Kakashi lowered his head in shame. "When Kakashi lifted his eyes, the Hokage stared into them. This wasn't the kindhearted Hokage that most of the village knew. This was the Hokage that had led the village through war. Kakashi shivered. "Convince me not to strip you of command and put you on probation."

There was a gasp from one of the ANBU standing camouflaged in the corner – the camouflage really wasn't necessary as everyone in the room knew they were there. Kakashi took a moment to decide which way to proceed. The Hokage sat back down behind his desk, patiently waiting for his response. Kakashi met his eyes and poured every ounce of his shame and determination to make things right and said softly, "Give me a month and they'll be the best gennin team this village has."

The Hokage stared him in the eyes for what seemed like an hour and Kakashi used every ounce of his will to maintain that gaze. "Hmmm." He tapped his pipe out in the ashtray sitting on his desk. "You may have until the Chuunin exams." Kakashi sighed and was about to say his thanks but the Hokage wasn't finished yet. "All of them will reach the finals. And one of them will win." Kakashi's eyes widened and this time both ANBU guards gasped.

With no hesitation, Kakashi responded. "I guarantee it."

The Hokage's pride was evident. " After 3 weeks your team will take another C-rank. We will discuss your progress then."

The next morning, Naruto and his team were stunned that their sensei was actually there on time. In fact he was _early_. He didn't even that orange book out. Kakashi looked more serious than Naruto had ever seen him. From the looks on Sasuke and Sakura's faces, they obviously were thinking similar thoughts. He looked at each of them and said, "Morning kids. We're gonna be doing things differently from now on."

Sakura blurted out, "Apparently so."

Kakashi smiled at them. They had learned that he was smiling when his eye made an upside down "U". Kakashi gestured for them to take a seat while he did the same. "To start, we all need to talk." He looked each of them in the eye and said, "We all got lucky on that mission. Every one of us should have died." They all started to protest. "Quiet." He didn't yell. He didn't even raise his voice. But they literally swallowed whatever words they were going to say. "First off, do any of you know how the ninja ranking system works?"

This was something that Sakura knew and she eagerly answered. " It goes from D to C to B to A to S."

Kakashi smiled and replied, "correct but it's more complicated than that. The path from D to A is what we call a linear progression." He wasn't at all surprised when none of them quite understood. "What that means is that a C-rank ninja on average is twice as strong as a D-rank and a B-rank is, on average, twice as strong as a C-rank and so on and so forth up to A-rank."

Kakashi paused here and let that sink in for a moment, waiting for the inevitable question. He was surprised when it was Naruto who asked, "You said up to A-rank. What about S-rank?"

Kakashi smiled at him and said, "Good question, Naruto." He noted in the back of his mind how Naruto seemed to lift himself up a bit in pride. He would remember that for the future. "The gap from A-rank to S-rank is exponential, meaning that S-rank is twice as strong as the combined sum of the ranks below it." He wasn't surprised when all three furrowed their brows in confusion. It was rather adorable in his opinion. "For example, we'll use a system here. Say a D-rank ninja has a power level of 1. A C-rank is twice as strong as a D-rank so their power level is 2. A B-rank is two times stronger than that so they would be a 4, making an A-rank's power level 8." They all seemed to be following along so far. Kakashi was slightly surprised that Naruto was actually keeping up. He had expected constant questions from him. "So what's the sum of all these power levels?"

They were all quiet for a moment before Naruto was the one to respond. "15." Every eye turned to him in shock. He chuckled in embarrassment and scratched the back of his neck.

After a moment, Kakashi kept going. "very good!" Again, Naruto seemed to puff up in pride. "Now remember that the gap between A-rank and S-rank is twice that sum. It took each of them a moment to get that through their head before their eyes bugged out. "That's right. An S-rank ninja's power level is about 30. And that's on average. Some are higher." Their eyes widened even further. Kakashi pulled out his Bingo Book and flipped to the page he was looking for. "This is a Bingo Book. Every so often, each village makes an updated list of the ninja that each village feels are a high enough rank to gain entry. Then a neutral party compiles all the vilages' entries into one international Bingo Book."

Sakura tilted her head. "But why would we give out information like that to give to enemy villages?"

"That's a good question. We do that as somewhat of a deterrent." He noticed Naruto's look of confusion and was surprised to see that Sasuke also seemed confused. "A deterrent acts as a way to basically intimidate other nations into being too scared to act against Konoha. It's common that for diplomatic missions to other nations, we send a ninja that is infamous as being someone not to cross. But we're getting off topic." He handed the Bingo Book to Sakura and said, "Read off the first two lines of that page."

Sakura swallowed. "Momochi Zabuza, A-rank nukenin, former affiliation – Kirigakure, also known as the _Demon in the Mist_."

Kakashi took the book back and flipped to another page. "Now do the same for that page." sakura looked at the page and then at Kakashi in confusion. "Just do it."

Sakura took a deep breath. "Hatake Kakashi, S-rank, affiliation – Konohagakure, also known as _Sharingan Kakashi, Konoha's Copy-nin_."

Kakashi nodded and took the book back. "Let's compare those. Knowing what we do now about how the power ranking system works, what do you see?"

They all sat for a moment in thought to digest the information. It was Sakura who replied, "you're an S-rank and he was an A-rank."

Kakashi nodded. "Now let's apply that too this past mission."

They thought for another moment before it was Sasuke said quietly, "You should have beat him easily."

Naruto continued this thought in a louder voice. "You should have kicked his ass! What's wrong with you?"

Kakashi chuckled when Sakura bopped him in the head. "Don't be rude to Kakashi-sensei!"

"He's right." Kakashi said. "As you may or may not be aware, before I was a jounin, I was an ANBU captain." They all knew what that meant, even Naruto. To get the point home to Sasuke, he pointedly said to him, "I trained your brother." Sasuke's head snapped up to him in shock. "If Zabuza had challenged me back in my prime, he would have been dead in minutes, and his accomplice would have been dead in another. I've gotten lazy. I don't remember the last time I really trained." He took a deep breath. "but that's not all I wanted to say to you. Not only have I been lazy with my own training, I've been lazy with yours."

Naruto narrowed his eyes and grumbled, "Damn right you have." Kakashi was surprised when Sakura did not make an attempt to hit him and Sasuke nodded his head – they almost never agreed.

Kakashi continued, "If I had taken my role as your sensei as seriously as I should have, any one of you could have wiped the floor with his accomplice. And together, you would have been able to have a decent chance to force Zabuza to retreat at the very least. I'm not one of the best shinobi in the village for nothing."

Sasuke said, "So what now?"

Even with his mask on, they could tell Kakashi was grinning evilly. "Now we're going to make up on lost time. I'm going to train you into the ground. And when I'm done, you're going to be the best gennin team in Konoha." Naruto and Sasuke nodded with determination, Sasuke adding his customary smirk. Kakashi glanced over at Sakura and saw the apprehension in her eyes. _It's about time to snap her out of this infatuation she has. _He stood up and his team stood with him. "We're gonna start each day with some calisthenics. So start stretching. "Sakura come over here for a moment." He walked a ways until he was sure that the others couldn't hear them. "We need to talk about this thing you have going for Sasuke." She opened her mouth to respond. "You're going about it all wrong." That was obviously not what she was expecting him to say. No one who knew Kakashi would deny that he was a crafty bastard. "To have any chance at his affection, you need him to respect you. And the only people he'll respect are those strong enough to stand out to him."

She took a deep breath and nodded at him. "I understand, Sensei."

They both knew that she had just made a life-changing decision.

Kakashi took sick pleasure as he saw how exhausted they were when they were done for the day. It was only about 3 in the afternoon. Kakashi knew he would be even more amused in the future when they were told this was an off day so to speak. After they were done with their calisthenics, they had spent the rest of the day doing more chakra control exercises. He watched them catch their breath for a moment before saying, "You guys can have the day off tomorrow, but we're gonna meet up here at 7 the day after. You guys will have homework however." They all groaned, even Sakura. "You will all write an essay outlining in great detail everything you did wrong on the mission and every way you can think of that you could have done better. We will be doing this after every mission from here on. I will be grading these and if I am not satisfied in your essay, you will be doing extra exercises after we're done for that day. Dismissed." With that he flickered away in a puff of smoke.

The next week was hell for Team 7. None of them could think of a single week that had been more exhausting in their lives. Every morning they did calisthenics and every day the number of each exercise was raised. Every other day they focused on some sort of mental or academic aspect of being a shinobi, usually focusing on tactical analyses. Each morning after these days, Kakashi would quiz them on every thing they discussed the day before with extra exercises for incorrect answers.

Kakashi told them that these were days off. At first they scoffed at these being _days off_. After their first day of physical workouts, they agreed with him. After morning calisthenics on these days, they would be worn to the bone. Most of the time, they would do some sort of survival exercise in the forests around the training ground for the first few hours, the task being to find Kakashi. They had yet to do so. The forest was laden with many traps, some of which could have caused a lot of injury had they not been avoided. When lunch time came around, Kakashi would appear behind them and tell them they had an hour break.

As soon as that hour was done, they engaged in sparring for two hours, sometimes with each other and sometimes all of them against Kakashi. They learned to loathe those days. After that was over, Kakashi would make 3 shadow clones that would take each of them aside for the rest of the evening to work on individual skills.

One clone was working with Sakura on raising her chakra levels and on genjutsu. Another clone focused on training Sasuke in how to use his Sharingan. The third was with Naruto, training him in how to actually use the three jutsu he could perform effectively – kage bunshin, henge and kawarimi. Kakashi decided to refrain from teaching him the shadow clone shortcut as he didn't want the jutsu to become a crutch for him. He was shocked to find that Naruto's henge, when overloaded with chakra, actually became a physical transformation, not just an illusion. Kakashi had immediately assigned him the task of writing an essay detailing all the ways he could think of to take advantage of this. After six straight days of this routine, they were finally told that they could have a real day off, with another essay due the morning after of course.

It was three weeks after Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage, had given Kakashi his ultimatum and he was eager to see what differences the team might show unconsciously when they reported for their mission. The first difference he noticed was the underlying comraderie between the three. It was no shock to him that the focus of their glares were no longer directed at each other but at their sensei.

The second thing he noticed was the quiet air of confidence they all had. Instead of the arrogance and overconfidence they had displayed before the Wave mission, they stood unconsciously showing that they knew what they're were good at because they had worked to the bone for that knowledge.

The third thing he noticed was their physical appearance. Sakura was no longer thin and wiry. Sasuke was no longer lean and gangly. Naruto was no longer slightly chubby. Sakura's body was quickly developing into that of a proper kunoichi, soft muscles hidden under soft skin. After weeks of "Hide and Seek" with Kakashi, she no longer wore the red dress she had before. Instead she wore tight blue leggings ending with dark green leg warmers and blue shinobi sandals below that. Over that she wore a long green shirt with the sleeves hanging down past her wrists and slightly obscuring her hands. She had cut her hair shorter so that it went down to her shoulders and she used her headband to hold it back from getting into her face.

Sasuke's attire was largely unchanged, but his shorts and arm warmers had changed from white to a dark green that was almost black

The most obvious change was Naruto. His orange jumpsuit was gone, but his love for the color remained. He had an orange muscle shirt on his torso covered by a short sleeved, dark green hooded sweatshirt that was left unzipped. Underneath the sweatshirt, he wore a bandolier with what seemed to be rolls of paper placed all the way down the front. His arms were left bare and the muscles on his arms were clearly evident. He wore dark blue, baggy pants that ended in dark green leg warmers with blue sandals.

Each of them wore a kunai holster on each leg and had a multitude of equipment packs on their belt. Belatedly, he realized that Naruto had yet to have an outburst, something that only Kakashi seemed unsurprised about. As he tossed the mission scroll to Kakashi, he raised an eyebrow. In response, Kakashi smirked and nodded his head slightly.

"What's the mission, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto had been getting much better at controlling his energy lately but he was still bouncing lightly in excitement. Kakashi couldn't blame him. This five day mission would probably be a vacation of sorts for them.

"Simple retrieval mission. We gotta run to a town about ten miles from Konoha, pick up a scroll and run back. The only reason it's a C-rank is the possibility of bandits being in the area."

They all heaved a sigh of relief. Sasuke said what was on the mind of all of them, "Thank Kami. Something not exciting."

Kakashi chuckled. _Definitely looking at it as a vacation_. Sakura seemed to agree with Sasuke. "Time off of training will be great."

Kakashi chuckled again. "Alright boys and girl, I assume you all have supplies for a few days on you?" They all mumbled, "Of course." Kakashi smiled in pride. "Excellent! Let's go then!" As soon as they passed the village gates, they leaped into the trees and took off. The two gate guards looked at each other in surprise.

Team 7 finished the mission in three days. They got back to Konoha in the late afternoon on the third day and immediately went to the mission office to give their report and get paid. They entered the room and bowed to the Hokage – One of the things Kakashi drilled into them on their academic days was proper protocol. The Hokage smiled at them in greeting and turned questioningly to Kakashi. He smiled at the Hokage and reported, "Team 7 reporting in. Mission successful." He casually tossed the scroll to the chuunin sitting next to the Hokage.

The Hokage smiled at them in pride. "You guys are two days earlier than expected." The gennin turned and glared at the sensei, who ignored them. "He told you guys it was a 3 day mission?" They all nodded in resignation. He gestured for the chuunin next to him and he handed each of them an envelope with their pay inside. "Dismissed."

They each bowed to the Hokage and headed out of the room. Once they were in the hall, Hiruzen heard Kakashi say, "Don't forget kids, training bright and early!" They all groaned in unison. Hiruzen laughed.

It had been two months and three weeks since Team 7 had returned from Wave country and anyone who had known them before that would be shocked at how different they had become. Partly because with their training routine, any off time they had was primarily used to relax at home. They were too tired to seek out friends. Finally they had time off however. Kakashi had given them a week to relax and get ready for the Chuunin exams coming up in a week. None of the three had been surprised when he had said he nominated them.

After he had said they had the week off, they had just stood around looking at each other. Naruto was the first to say something. "So we have an entire week off."

Sasuke grunted in affirmation. Sakura and Naruto had become quite adept at understanding what each grunt meant. Sasuke had a surprising variety. Sakura nodded and said, "So. What do we do?"

It seemed like an odd question, but having spent the last 11 weeks with little to no free time, they didn't really know what to do with their time. They each furrowed their brows in contemplation. Sasuke finally said, "Lunch?"

Sakura shrugged and Naruto replied, "Sure. Ichiraku's?" It was a simple question, but the hopeful undertone was apparent.

Sasuke sighed and nodded. Sakura sniffed and said, "Fine. But I get to pick tomorrow."

Naruto nodded and Sasuke grunted again in affirmation. None of them even considered that they had all assumed they would meet up the next day. It was just natural to them at this point.

A few days later the three had run into Konohamaru after lunch that day. Konohamaru ran up to Naruto and yelled out, "Hey, Boss! Where've you been?" Without even waiting for a response, he continued, "I bet you were out getting super strong huh?" He looked over at Sakura. "Is she your girlfriend?" Before anybody could say anything, he continued again, "She has a big forehead."

Naruto's eyes widened comically and Sasuke grunted in amusement as Sakura cracked her knuckles. "You wanna repeat that, you little shit?" Konohamaru turned and ran, Sakura fast on his heels. Naruto ran after her to defuse the situation and Sasuke went with him to watch the show.

Sasuke and Naruto turned down the alley Sakura and Konohamaru ran down and immediately assessed the situation. Konohamaru was being held up by the collar by a Suna ninja – evident from a quick glance at his forehead. Sakura was about 5 feet in front of him, close enough to step in if something happened, but far enough to not be immediately seen as threatening. A second Sand ninja, this one a girl, was standing behind the first with a worried expression on her face. They both came to the conclusion that the two were teammates. Right after that, they noticed that a third person was not with them. They both narrowed their eyes in suspicion and without saying a word, Sasuke leaped into a tree and Naruto continued forward.

As he got closer, Naruto heard Sakura say, "You should let him go." There was an undertone of command in her voice that made the guy pause for a moment.

His bravado was back soon after. "Oh yeah? Why should I? The little brat ran into me!"

Naruto took that moment to chime in. "For starters, holding up a kid by his collar makes you look like a bitch. You do know that kid's still in the academy right? What kind of gennin gets his rocks off from picking on academy students?" The boy narrowed his eyes at Naruto while his female teammate raised an eyebrow. "Second of all, since he's not a gennin yet and still technically a civilian, it could be considered an act of war to physically assault a Konoha citizen." The girl's eyes widened and she began tugging on his sleeve. The boy yanked his sleeve back and scoffed at Naruto. "Then there's the fact that this kid is the Hokage's grandson."

The girl glared at the boy and opened her mouth to most likely berate him when they all started as they heard a voice from a tree next to them, "Kankurou. You're embarrassing me." The boy attached to the voice appeared next to them in a swirl of sand. Sakura narrowed her eyes at that. These were most likely gennin and the average gennin is not typically able of performing a shunshin. As if that wasn't enough, it was a personalized shunshin, which is even harder still.

Kankurou finally released Konohamaru when a large pebble hit him in the hand, "You should listen to your teammate. Naruto and Sakura were the only ones that didn't jump in surprise when Sasuke's voice carried down from the same tree. He casually dropped down between his two teammates as Konohamaru scurried back behind Naruto. The first boy sneered at them before turning to follow his two teammates out of the alley.

The teammates looked at each other before they also exited the alley and went their separate ways, waving at each other in farewell.

**This chapter is more of a bridge chapter. The real action starts next chapter with the Chuunin exams. Again, tell me what you think.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Naruto was surprised at how easy the first test had been. Well, not the test _itself _per se. More like his passing it. Before returning from the wave mission, there would have been no way that he would have passed that test. During their training, Kakashi had emphasized that everything a ninja says probably has subtext. So as soon as the proctor had said the test parameters, Team 7 immediately knew they could cheat. Naruto used his clones – he had figured out the short cut a couple weeks ago, Sasuke used his Sharingan, and Sakura...knew the answers.

So now they were standing outside Training Ground 44, also known as the Forest of Death. From rumors they had heard about this forest they were most definitely cautious. They had just been told about the scrolls and they gathered off to the side. As soon as they were far enough to not be heard, Sakura said, "So how should we do this?"

Naruto's face scrunched up in thought before his eyes widened. "The hot proctor lady only said we had to have two scrolls when we get to the tower right?" The other two looked at him and nodded hesitantly. "She never said we couldn't get the scrolls now."

Sakura smiled at him and Sasuke grunted in approval. Sakura said, "You crafty bastard."

Naruto chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. He addressed Sakura: "So I'm thinking Sasuke watches the other teams going to get their scrolls with his Sharingan on, so he can memorize good targets and where they put the scrolls. We'll walk around "finding a good gate"" At this point he made comically exaggerated "air quotes". Sakura giggled at that. "You can use a genjutsu when we get to the teams that Sasuke marks and I'll reach in and grab their scroll."

Sasuke grunted and said, "Good plan. Let's do it."

They arrived back at the gate they had chosen with a minute to spare. The had managed to grab the scrolls of four other teams. Thankfully, one of them was an earth scroll, so they had one of each already. As soon as they saw the proctor at their gate move to open the gate, Naruto said softly, "First one there buys lunch." The other two nodded. The gate opened and they leaped up into the trees and took off.

Kakashi finally understood why all the jounin senseis spent the second task in the jounin lounge in the tower. It was totally different when you had your own gennin team to brag about. He was currently lounging on a couch in the corner of the room with Sarutobi Asuma, Yuuhi Kurenai, and Maito Gai, the only other sensei that he was familiar with. He took a casual glance over his book to leer at Kurenai, whose legs looked magnificent as usual in her usual outfit. She seemed to have noticed because she glared at him. Kakashi giggled. Asuma looked over at him and lit a cigarette. He took a drag and said, "So I heard Anko's in charge of this one."

They all shuddered. Gai leaped up and gave them a thumbs up. "YOSH. MY TEAM'S FLAMES OF YOUTH WILL CARRY THEM THROUGH!" He looked over at Kakashi as he sat down again. "KAKASHI, MY HIP RIVAL, WHAT SAY YOU ABOUT YOUR TEAM'S FLAMES OF YOUTH?!"

Kakashi casually turned the page, saying, "Hmm? What was that?"

"CURSE YOU AND YOUR HIP ATTITUDE!" Gai turned to the corner where soft sobs could be heard.

Kurenai sighed as each of them sweatdropped. "Well I don't know how my team will do. They're designed to be a tracking team so they should be fine. I just hope they get through without getting injured too much."

Asuma nodded his head. "Yeah. To be honest with you, I'm worried about this task. My team is good in a straight-up fight, but I don't know how well they'll do with so many ambushes in there." They all looked pointedly at Kakashi who again casually turned a page. He took great pride in his ability to look casually nonchalant. "Well Kakashi? It's your turn."

"They'll be here by the end of the day."

Asuma choked on his cigarette and was now hacking up a lung. Kurenai glance at Asuma in disgust and glared at Kakashi. "What the hell are you talking about? gennin can't run here that fast, let alone get another scroll as well."

He turned another page. "That's assuming my gennin are on your gennin's level." Kurenai and Asuma glared at him and Gai looked at him questioningly. "They aren't."

Gai suddenly jumped up and flashed them another thumb up, "YOSH! KAKASHI, YOUR CONFIDENCE IN YOUR TEAM'S FLAMES OF YOUTH PORTRAYS THE BURNING OF YOUTHFUL PRIDE IN YOURSELF!"

Kakashi ignored him again – _Is it wrong that I find ignoring him so amusing?_ Kurenai ground out. "You're an arrogant son of a bitch, you know that?" She tossed her hair over her shoulder – Kakashi took the opportunity to glance at her chest – and said, "What makes you so sure of that, anyway?"

Kakashi turned another page. "They have the most potential in their year and they're being trained by the best jounin in the village."

The casual attitude when he said that made all three of them glare. Kakashi wasn't surprised. He _did_ just insult not only their students but themselves as well. He finally looked up from his book to stare at Asuma, then at Kurenai. "I could wipe the floor with any jounin in this village." He glance over at Gai. "Except Gai. He might give me some trouble."

Kurenai was once again glaring at him – she really was hotter when she was glaring at him. _Is that why I do this?_ He mentally shrugged. It seemed that no one had anything to say to that, so they all just sat there in silence but for the occasional sipping sound as they drank their coffee.

Team 7 was currently racing through the forest at top speed, little but blurs to any of the teams below them – not that any of them knew they were there of course. Most gennin would be unable to keep this speed for so long, but after Kakashi's survival training (beat down), they had built up some impressive stamina and speed. They stopped about 30 feet from the tower to rest for a moment and analyze the situation. Naruto looked over at Sasuke and he turned on his Sharingan and gazed towards "no-man's land". "I don't see any chakra signatures."

Sakura and Naruto looked over at him in confusion. Sakura glance forward again, "Strange. That seems too easy."

Naruto chimed in. "Yeah but I'd be willing to bet nobody thought anyone would be able to get this far so fast."

The other two nodded and Sasuke and Naruto made to ump forward when Sakura stopped them. "Wait! Let's just be sure. Naruto make some clones and send em over." Naruto nodded and made two clones appear. They each took off for the tower. The three were admittedly shocked when each of them made it about ten feet before a snake popped out of the ground under their feet. One of them was unfortunate enough to be bitten on the leg before he registered the snake and he poofed out of existence. The other was fast enough to substitute with a rock to the side, but as soon as he appeared again, another snake popped out underneath him and managed to get him with its fangs.

The three stood there for a minute. Naruto finally said, "What the fuck?"

It was a testament to how shocked Sakura was that she didn't berate him for his language. She turned to Sasuke. "I thought you said there weren't any chakra signatures."

Sasuke furrowed his brow. "There weren't. There must be some sort of cloak on them." They all entered their thinking poses.

Naruto snapped his fingers. "I got it!" Sakura shushed him. He rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment before he focused again. "We launch ourselves over there."

Sasuke and Sakura looked at him. Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "What."

Naruto nodded fervently. "Yeah man. We just need to make a catapult."

Sakura raised an eyebrow at him. "And just how do we do that?"

Naruto calmly said, "I don't know. I haven't though that far yet." His teammates both sweatdropped. He looked over at Sakura. "Aren't you the smart one?" She glared at him before returning to her thinking pose. Her other teammates copied her. Finally, she said, "We just need something springy and something that can make tension for the potential energy."

Sasuke grunted. "We could use ninja wire for the tension." She nodded.

Naruto looked over at her. "What would be the ideal springy?"

Sakura tapped her manicured finger on her chin – She might be taking her training seriously, but there were some things she refused to lose. "Well I guess something like a board made from rubber."

Naruto made a clone who transformed into a rubber board. "Like that?"

She smiled at him and said, "Well, let's find out. Sasuke, you're the one with all the wire." He nodded and pulled a length out of his pouch.

Orochimaru was angry; very angry. Some would say that he was always angry, but that would be incorrect. Usually he would simply frustrated at the incompetence of those around him. This time, he was furious. He couldn't find the Uchiha anywhere in this Kami-forsaken forest. He knew he was inside because he had seen him and his team waiting outside a gate.

He had made dozens of tsuchi bunshin, but none of them could find him. He had taken his rage out on a few of the teams that annoyed him, but that did little to subdue his anger.

After 5 days, he gave up and made his way to the tower. After sneaking in, he killed the jounin sensei for the gennin team he had sent, and, stealing the man's face, he made his way to the small arena in the entrance of the tower to see which teams had made it.

Team 7 looked around at all the gennin who had made it past the second exam. There were 6 other teams that had made it to the tower. According to the new proctor, a sickly looking man with a persistent cough, that was far more than they anticipated and thus they needed to hold preliminary matches to cut down the field.

In addition to 5 Konoha teams that had made it through – An impressive feat that had the jounin on the balconies swelling with pride – there was a team from Oto and a team from Suna. When the proctor asked if anyone wanted to drop out, Naruto was unsurprised to see that the Konoha "veteran" they met before the first round raised his hand. _That explains why he's never made it through._ After a speech about how the match ups would work, they were all told to make their way up to the balcony.

They joined Kakashi and he smiled at them while ruffling Naruto's hair, ignoring the glare he received. "I'm proud of you guys."

Sasuke scoffed. "You'd better be after we made it within a day."

Kakashi glanced over to see that Kurenai was still annoyed with him and said to his team, "Indeed. I would have lost my bet otherwise. And you know what that would mean."

Sakura smiled at him. "Yeah, well, we'll just have to make chuunin so you can never threaten us with extra training again."

He smiled back, but before he could reply they heard the proctor yell out, "Uchiha Sasuke vs. Akado Yoroi."

Without a word Sasuke walked down to meet his opponent on the floor. Without a word, the proctor coughed and motioned for them to begin. Yoroi sneered at Sasuke who was standing with his hands in his pockets. "I bet you think you're tough shit just cuz you're an Uchiha. Well I'll take great pleasure in knocking you down a peg."

Sasuke scoffed. "You done stroking your own ego?"

The other boy glared at him and his hands glowed blue before he rushed at Sasuke, who waited until the last moment to duck under the boy's punch and gave him a strong uppercut to the stomach as he stepped past. He walked away for three steps before he turned to Yoroi who was standing again and taking deep breaths. Sasuke put his hands back in his pockets. "You wanna pause for a moment while you stroke your ego again?"

Up on the balcony Ino was gushing over his performance, "Sasuke-kun is so awesome! Oh, he looks so cool!" She glared at Shikamaru when he mumbled, "troublesome."

Shikamaru jumped and Chouji, who was standing next to him, choked on a chip when they heard Naruto's voice right next to them, "Yeah, he's pretty cool. I'm way more awesome than he is though."

Ino turned to glare at him. "You could never be better than him, Baka!"

Naruto shrugged, an action which made Shikamaru narrow his eyes in suspicion. "Meh. I don't know why he ignores you." He looked down her body and back up to her eyes, smiling at her heated glare. "I sure wouldn't."

"Naruto! Control yourself! You're in public." Naruto looked over at Sakura sheepishly and nodded.

Kakashi Kakashi had seen the byplay and smiled widely at Naruto. "I'm so proud of you!" This earned him another glare from Kurenai and a proud smile from Naruto which in turn earned him another glare from Ino and a growl. Hearing the growl he immediately ran back over to his team and thereby, relative safety. He was incorrect however because as soon as he got there, Sakura bopped him on the head.

They all jumped when the proctor yelled out, "Uchiha Sasuke is the winner."

As soon as Sasuke got up to the balcony, he looked around at them and said, "You weren't watching." It wasn't a question, and Naruto chuckled slightly in guilt.

"Next match: Aburame Shino vs. Zaku" The two made their way down and engaged in the typical pre-fight banter. This banter was rather one sided though, as Shino didn't say anything. Those that knew him weren't surprised. He almost never spoke. It was obvious to Team 7 that Shino was going to win. Zaku relied far too much on the air cannons in his arms and wasn't paying attention as he should have. When Shino had his bugs enter the cannons and clog them, they backfired and blew off his arms. The fight was very much over at that point. Shino returned to the balcony without a word.

The third match was between the last member of the veteran Konoha team vs. the Suna ninja that they had run across bullying Konohamaru the other day. Naruto glared at him even though the boy wasn't paying attention to him. It was an easy victory for the boy. If Tsurugi Misumi, the Konoha ninja, had known anything about Suna ninja, he would have known that Suna is famous for its puppet masters. It's always a safe idea to fight an unknown Suna ninja with the assumption that they use puppets. The Suna boy, Kankurou, had his puppet crush the Konoha ninja in a rather gruesome way and returned to the balcony.

"Next match: Haruno Sakura vs. Yamanaka Ino."

The two met in the middle and Ino was the first to speak. "Looks like we finally get to fight for Sasuke-kun's love."

Sakura scoffed, an action that Ino was clearly not suspecting. "You'll never get his attention if you stay as weak as you are."

Ino stopped talking and lurched forward before rushing at Sakura. She charged the area directly to Sakura's left, leaving her wide open to the chop Sakura gave to the back of her neck. She dropped to the floor and the proctor declared Sakura the winner.

When she got back to the balcony, Asuma was saying to no one in particular, "When did she have a chance to place the genjutsu?"

Sakura answered his question. "While she and I were talking."

He looked askance at her. "I didn't see you make any hand seals."

Shikamaru piped in lazily, "That's why her sleeves are so long. So you can't see her making hand seals." The jounin nodded in appreciation, and Kurenai looked at Kakashi in a new way as he congratulated Sakura."

He then looked over at Kurenai and Asuma. "Two for two." The other two scowled.

"Next match: Tenten vs. Temari."

As the two walked down the stairs, Sakura turned to Gai, saying, "Tenten's a weapons specialist right?"

Gai's reply was unsurprisingly overenthusiastic. "YOSH! HER ABILITY WITH WEAPONS SHOWS THE DEPTHS OF HER FLAMES OF YOUTH!"

Naruto was the next to speak. "She's going to lose." The gennin around him glared. "That Suna kunoichi is wearing a battle fan on her back, so you can assume that she's a wind specialist. That's the worst match up a weapon's specialist could have." The gennin and their jounin sensei looked at him in a new light. In a few minutes, Naruto was proven correct as Tenten was unable to do anything against Temari's wind jutsu.

"Next Match: Nara Shikamaru vs. Tsuchi Kin." Shikamaru groaned and wouldn't have even gone down if it weren't for Asuma telling him his mother would not approve of his forfeiture. As soon as he seriously got into the fight, Shikamaru's genius was made apparent. The battle lasted 5 minutes before Kin walked into a trap Shikamaru had set up at the beginning of the fight.

"Next match: Inuzuka Kiba vs. Uzumaki Naruto." They both jumped over the ledge to make it to the floor as quick as possible.

Kiba started the pre-fight banter. "You think getting a new wardrobe makes you a better ninja?" He sneered following this.

"Yeah it does." This casual statement surprised Kiba. "I wore a bright orange jumpsuit before. I could wear pretty much anything else and it would be an improvement." This statement was followed by a few chuckles.

Kiba took his dog, Akamaru, out of his jacket and set him off over to the side. He arrogantly turned back to Naruto and said, "I'll just put him over here. It's not like I'll need his help against the dead-last." He followed this with another sneer.

"Big mistake." After saying this, Naruto charged forward, making two clones come to life next to him. Kiba was surprised at his speed and was forced to backpedal as the two clones began attacking from the sides while the real one attacked from the front. He also didn't seem to notice that the Naruto's were trying to maneuver him into the position that he wanted. Jumping back, the two clones kept attacking while the real Naruto pulled out a fuuma shuriken and opened it up before launching it at Kiba. He didn't let it go as hard as he could however. Hitting Kiba with it wasn't his goal.

Kiba finally managed to dispel the clones but did so with barely enough time to duck underneath the shuriken. He rushed forward, but stopped when he heard Naruto's voice from behind him. "You might wanna forfeit."

He turned around and snarled when he saw Naruto holding a kunai to Akamaru's neck. He was about to charge him, but stopped with wide eyes when the kunai moved closer and Akamaru whined. "I forfeit." he glared as Naruto put the puppy down and patted it on the head before making his way back up to the balcony. "I'll kill you for that." Kiba followed this with a snarl.

Naruto looked over his shoulder at him. "If I was an enemy in the field, he would have been dead as soon as I got to him." As he got to his team, he blushed sheepishly as they congratulated him.

Kakashi looked over to where the Hokage was sitting and smiled at him. The Hokage nodded his head in approval.

"Next match: Hyuuga Hinata vs. Hyuuga Neji." The hatred that Neji displayed to Hinata throughout the match was disgusting to the Konoha shinobi. Gai was particularly shameful when his student almost killed Hinata.

There was an awkward pause before the proctor called out, "Next match: Gaara vs. Lee" This match was equally disturbing. Lee had opened five of the gates – something that Kakashi berated Gai for – and had seemed to beat Gaara into the ground. As Lee had started to celebrate, gaara's sand shot out and before anyone could react, Lee's left arm and left leg had been pulverized, effectively ending his career as a shinobi.

After another awkward pause, the last match was announced and Chouji went down to fight an Oto. ninja name Dosu. Dosu's ability to manipulate sound had disoriented Chouji enough that he rolled right into a wall and knocked himself out.

After Dosu was declared the winner, they all gathered on the floor to listen to the Hokage's speech. Apparently, the Chuunin Exams were an alternative to war. None of the gennin seemed to care too much, though, being mostly concerned with just getting promoted. After his heart-warming speech, the Hokage announced, "you will each be given a number randomly. These numbers will determine your place in the bracket for the Finals. Please reach into this basket and take a number."

There was a moment to collect who had which number and determine the bracket positioning before the proctor announced the match ups: "

Uzumaki Naruto vs. Temari

Aburame Shino vs. Nara Shikamaru

Hyuuga Neji vs. Haruno Sakura

Kankurou vs. Gaara

Kinuto Dosu vs. Uchiha Sasuke

"You all have one month to prepare for the finals. Congratulation on having the honor to represent your village and you country in this Exam."

**You have obviously noticed some of the differences between this and canon. For starters, I always wondered why nobody thought of doing that stunt with the scrolls at the beginning. I feel a team that's been trained hard by Hatake Kakashi, the man whose motto is "Look underneath the underneath" would pretty much force them to think outside the box.**

**Also, I know some of you are gonna complain about how overpowered they are in the prelims. I hope I've said it enough, but here it is again: THEIR SENSEI IS THE BEST JOUNIN IN THE VILLAGE. Particularly now that he's gotten his shit together. Remember, he hasn't just been training his team. He's been training himself also. I'm not exaggerating when Kakashi says they're the most talented team. It's repeatedly implied in canon that this is the case.**

**On top of that, they all got relatively lucky match ups. Every one of their opponents underestimated them. Now that they've displayed some of their skills, I assure you they'll have some trouble with the Finals.**

**On another note, since Sakura has made it through instead of the double knockout in canon, I had to rearrange the match ups. I did a random number generator to make them so they were randomly assigned. I'll leave you guys to guess what each of the new matches will imply for the storyline.**

**One other mundane thing I wanted to add in this story. Naruto is a bit of a pervert in this one. He's not gonna be a super pervert like Jaraiya and he's not gonna walk around reading porn. How does he not become one in canon? His first original jutsu is turning into an extremely attractive girl and in canon, he spent many hours in an adult bookstore doing "research". He obviously has had an appreciation since before he was a gennin. And now hormones are starting to set in. So every once in a while there's gonna be some perviness thrown in. For the most part, it's just gonna be there to add some humor.**

**Once again, tell me what you guys think.**


	3. Chapter 3

Kakashi stood in the Hokage's office alongside Kurenai, Asuma and Gai. Considering all of them were sensei for the Konoha gennin who had advanced to the Finals, he was pretty sure he knew what this meeting was about. The Hokage was puffing on his pipe as usual, and he smiled at all of them. "I'm sure you've all come to the conclusion of this meeting. While I am officially not allowed to help train any of the gennin from Konoha that advanced since more than one passed, I am allowed to keep tabs on the training for each finalist. So in a nutshell, I want to know what your plans are for this month." He tapped out his pipe and said, "Since your gennin are technically enemies at this point for all intents and purposes, I will talk to each of you individually, starting with Kurenai."

The others made their way outside of the room to wait for their turn. Asuma lit a cigarette, Gai leaned up against the wall and closed his eyes. Kakashi pulled out a familiar book as he lounged on the bench up against the wall. For some reason, he had the feeling that he would be the last one called. Indeed he was correct. Once Kurenai stepped out five minutes later, Gai followed and was then followed by Asuma. As each one stepped out, Kakashi looked up at them over the top of his book, searching for any body signals that might suggest what they had discussed with the Hokage. He was disappointed to find that there was nothing of interest. _Probably the mundane "Who's training them and do you need any help?" that he was sure was the norm_.

Finally he was called in and stood before the Hokage's desk. The Hokage leaned back in his chair. "So, what do you intend to do? Your situation is more complicated than the others." The reason was unspoken: he had more than one student advancing. "Take a seat."

Kakashi did and said, "Well, I had just thought I would continue their training where I left off before the exams started. Seems to have worked pretty well so far."

The Hokage chuckled before leaning forward and staring at Kakashi, his eyes portraying how serious he intended this discussion to be. "Unfortunately, that will not be possible. Not only is it unfair for them to not get individual, focused tutoring as the rest of the competitors are getting, I have plans for you this month." Kakashi tilted his head to the side. "I have recalled Jaraiya for the duration of this month. Typically I recall him only when I have sensitive information that I need to relay. This month is different. He will be here for the sole purpose of seeing to your individual training."

Even with his one eye the only visible part of his face, Kakashi's confusion and apprehension was apparent. "Can I ask why, Hokage-sama?"

The Hokage continued, "Every few months the Council tries to convince me to declare a successor. Without change, there are four candidates that they have previously approved for my consideration. Can you guess who they are and why I have refused them so far?"

Kakashi pondered for a moment, "Well Jaraiya obviously, but he's too valuable in his current position." He paused and continued once the Hokage had nodded. "Tsunade is probably their next choice, but her current disposition towards Konoha doesn't make her an ideal candidate."

"That is putting it lightly, but continue."

"Those are the two obvious choices. I would guess that the third is Gai – He's certainly powerful enough. But I think you haven't chosen him due to his...eccentricities." The Hokage nodded at him with a bemused smile. Kakashi hesitated. "Would the fourth be Asuma?"

The Hokage looked at him closely. "No. The fourth candidate is you."

Kakashi lowered his head and it was a long minute until he whispered, "Why me?"

The Hokage waited until he had raised his head to look him in the eye. "You love this village with all your heart. There have been many times where events have occurred in this village or because of this village that could have driven you to be like Tsunade."

They both knew that they were dancing around the issue of his father's suicide. At this final sentence Kakashi's eye narrowed in anger. "There is nothing that would make me abandon this village!"

Sarutobi smiled in pride. "Precisely. There are few people who have the same sentiments. The first thing the Council looks at is how powerful the candidate is. I'm sure you can understand why." Kakashi nodded, still somewhat distracted. "I do not see it that way. Indeed being powerful enough is one of my priorities as well, but not the biggest. Far more important to me is their attitude, their will of fire. Do you know why I always deny you as a candidate even though I feel you have the perfect mindset?"

Kakashi shook his head. "I don't know. I wasn't powerful enough?"

"That is a reason. But not when you were first thrown into the pool." Kakashi was confused, and the Hokage noticed and continued. "When you chose to quit ANBU and become a regular jounin, you immediately became the council's first choice behind Jaraiya." It took Kakashi a moment to process that. "You were on the list ahead of Tsunade back then. If I recall correctly, you were an S-rank ninja back then."

Kakashi nodded. "Yeah I'm training to fix that past tense verb usage."

Sarutobi nodded. "Indeed. And that is why I am considering you again. There is a reason I gave you 6 months to prove your change of mind rather than the one month you asked for. It is easy to change for 1 month. It is much harder to remain changed for 6."

Kakashi was still distracted, but he nodded at the Hokage. He had always been quick to draw conclusions. "So you're trying to groom me."

The Hokage nodded. "Yes. And thus you see why I can't let you train your students this month. It is far more important to get you back to your old level. And then to push you beyond that level. I have led this village for decades and through two world wars, Kakashi, and these old bones are telling me that something soon will see me gone. When the time comes that I pass on, the last thing this village needs is a power struggle to fill the void." Kakashi nodded in resignation. "Jaraiya surpassed me long ago, and he has already trained one Hokage. He'll find you as soon as he arrives. Be prepared within the next few days. By the end of the month, you will be tested. I won't tell you how, so prepare for anything. A Hokage must always be ready for whatever might occur. In addition to that, you will make a Kage Bunshin every day that will shadow me as I go about the daily business of running this village. I will expect your clone at 0800 tomorrow morning. Dismissed."

When Team 7 arrived at their usual training ground, they all had mixed feelings. Well, that's not exactly true. Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto were all in fine spirits. They had all made it to the Finals at the Chuunin exams. Their happiness faded slightly when they saw their sensei sitting down and leaning against a training post. The first clue they had that their sensei wasn't feeling well was that his hair was drooping just a little bit. They had never seen his hair droop. Even when they were on missions, his hair always kept its gravity-defying nature. They all stopped and glanced at each, raised an eyebrow and carried on to sit in front of him.

He didn't say anything at first, also unusual. He usually greeted them as soon as they arrived. Sakura leaned forward and said, "Sensei, what's wrong?"

He looked at them and smiled in his usual fashion, but after spending as much time with him as they had, they all could tell that he was faking it. "Oh nothing really. I just couldn't get to sleep last night."

"Oh." Naruto summarized the general thought pretty well with that one word. "So anyway," An obvious ploy to change the subject. "what are you gonna teach us?"

"Welllllll," Kakashi drew this out, a sign that he wasn't totally down in the dumps. "I'll will be teaching you..." Again he paused and this time they all glared at him. He smiled, and this time they could tell that it was genuine. "nothing."

There was a moment of silence broken by Sasuke. "What?"

Naruto scowled at their teacher. "What the fuck does that mean?" He casually dodged Sakura's attempt to hit him for his language. A feat that earned him a glare from her.

"The Hokage has given me an assignment for this month, so I have arranged for you to have private tutors."

Naruto scowled again. "So you're just gonna hand us off to some random teacher?"

Kakashi smiled at him again. "Not exactly. All three of them are friends of mine. Friends that owe me favors. Favors that I've called in to get them to take the time off this month to train you."

Sakura said, "So who are they and what are they gonna teach us?"

Kakashi leaned back some more against the post. "There is another reason that I have chosen these particular people. To preface that, let me explain something. The main focus in general of the training of gennin is to develop their basic skills to a proficient level. For the most part, shinobi – " He was cut off by Sakura's growl. "and kunoichi start to specialize when they become chuunin. Each of these three specialize in areas where I feel you would be adept."

They seemed to accept this. Sasuke grunted in acceptance and said, "So when are we meeting with them?"

Kakashi smiled again. This time it was a smile that put the three of them on edge. "That would be too easy. They know that they'll be training you, but you have to find them first." They all sighed. "Naruto, You get Shirakumo Hayama. Sakura, you get Yamashiro Aoba. And finally, Sasuke, you get Kanden Tekuno. Good luck all!" With that he stood quickly and disappeared in a shunshin.

They all shrugged and, as one, turned to the others and said, "See you in a month." They smiled and leaped off in different directions.

Naruto immediately headed to the Hokage monument, his usual spot to think. Once he had arrived, he sat down on the edge of the Yondaime Hokage's head with his feet dangling over the edge. Unconcerned with the ridiculously high drop that he would fall if he fell off, he looked out over the village. He had always loved coming up here. Not many people came up here so it was a perfect place to come and think alone. It didn't hurt that the view was spectacular.

He lifted one of his legs up towards his chest and rested his arm on it. _How the hell am I supposed to find a jounin? I don't even know what he looks like!_ He huffed in exasperation. _I could send a shit-ton of kage bunshin to sweep the village for him, but that brings me back to the fact that I don't know what he looks like._

Another 20 minutes of contemplating later and he had his answer. He stood up and kicked a rock over the edge of the cliff. He waited 10 seconds before he fell off the edge himself. He breathed deeply as he felt the air rush by him. His eyes spotted the rock he had kicked. He was satisfied to note that the rock was about 20 feet from the ground. The rock had just hit the ground when he lifted his hands into a seal and focused his chakra. He shifted his position so that his feet would be the first thing to hit the ground and released his chakra. A puff of smoke later and he appeared on the ground, his substitution successful. The rock landed next to him a couple seconds later with a light thump and once his adrenaline was back under control, he strolled off. _That was fucking awesome! I gotta remember that one! _He chose to ignore the throbbing ache in his lower legs. The pain disappeared in few seconds anyway.

As soon as Sakura was in the streets of the village, she immediately set off for the shinobi records archive. Obviously, the records that it held were things that had no chance of being a point of national security. Mostly, it just held a database that had the dossiers for the active shinobi.

As she entered the archive, she flashed her badge at the bored jounin guarding the door. After being granted access – obviously, only shinobi were allowed access – she headed off to the jounin section. It was unlikely that she would find her tutor's information, but it was worth a shot.

Sasuke didn't really have an idea about how to track down his temporary sensei, so he just wandered around the village, hoping to come across something helpful. Fate seemed to be on his side because he turned the corner and found himself in front of one of the jounin bars. It was early in the day, so it wasn't very busy, but he did see a plain looking man walking out. He had brown hair and green eyes and he wore the standard jounin outfit.

Sasuke approached him and said, "Jounin-san, could I ask you a favor?"

The man obviously recognized him, for he replied, "Depends what it is Uchiha-san."

Sasuke nodded his head and said, "I'm trying to track down a jounin that my sensei said would help me train for the finals."

The man laughed and said, "Your sensei is Hatake Kakashi, right?" Sasuke nodded. "I"m guessing all he gave you was a name?" Sasuke nodded again, this time with a scowl. "Well, let's see what I can do. What's the name?"

Sasuke smiled in relief. "Kanden Tekuno."

The man nodded in thought. "Lucky for you, we're acquainted." He looked up at the sky. "At this time of day, he's probably training. He usually goes to training ground 32."

Sasuke bowed slightly, "Thank you very much." The man waved him off and strode off down the street. Sasuke watched him go for a moment. _I forgot to get his name. Oops_. He then scowled when he realized he had no idea where that training ground was. He sighed in resignation and continued his search.

Naruto was a common occurrence in the Hokage's office – not as much recently but that was Kakashi-sensei's fault – so the secretary smiled at him and nodded. That meant that the Hokage wasn't in a meeting, so Naruto strode in without knocking. The Hokage didn't raise his head an inch and greeted him, "Naruto-kun, what brings you here?"

"Not much Hokage-jiji. I was just hoping you could do me a favor."

The Hokage finished signing a document with a flourish and handed it off to the man next to him, Kakashi-sensei – _How the hell did I not see him there?_ – Kakashi smiled at him and poofed away in a shunshin. The Hokage raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And what would that be?"

"Well, I'm trying to find someone, but all I know is the guy's name: Shirakumo Hayama."

The Hokage chuckled. "I'm assuming that this person would be the tutor Kakashi has handed you off to this month?" Naruto nodded. "I suppose I could help you with that. Bird!" An ANBU phased out of the corner. "Go find Jounin Shirakumo and tell him to report here." The ANBU nodded quickly, saluted, and poofed away. The Hokage looked back at Naruto with a smile. "I'm assuming that this is something that you would rather Kakashi not find out about?" Naruto nodded. "Then why don't you grab some lunch and be back in half an hour. I'll give Kakashi some annoyingly mundane errand to run."

Naruto nodded and walked out of the office. _Eventually I'll be good enough at Shunshin to do it whenever_.

Fortunately for Sakura, she found her temporary sensei's file pretty quickly. Luckily, it had a picture of him. There was a list of certain assignments, administrative shifts or gate guard duty usually. This guy was a jounin, but he seemed to have a large number of gate duty shifts recently. _If he's not at the gate, someone there might know where to find him._

Once she had made it to the gate, she found the usual chuunin in the guard post, Kotetsu and Izumo. "Have you guys seen Aoba-san today?"

They looked at each other for a curiously long moment, before Kotetsu said, "Yeah, he just got off a shift an hour or so ago. Should be at his apartment." They gave her directions and she turned to go. She made it five steps before something pricked her in the neck. She stumbled a few steps before she collapsed to the ground.

She came back to consciousness in what seemed to be a comfy couch. Remembering what had happened, she kept the appearance of sleep while she analyzed her situation as best she could. To her left she could hear a humming sound. There was the thump of something closing and a she heard water turn on for a bit. _Probably the kitchen and the humming is probably the microwave._ The couch was dimpled as though it had been around for a while and the armrests were worn slightly. Her nose smelled a mix of fish cooking, and a hint of air freshener trying to hide the smell of dirty laundry. Having as good an understanding of the vicinity as she could, she opened her eyes.

Her eyes immediately spotted a man. He was obviously her new teacher since he greatly resembled the ninja ID photo in his file. He was sitting casually across from her on a comfy-looking chair and he had a tumbler in his right hand with some sort of drink in it. He took a drink and smiled at her. "What did you do wrong?"

_So it was a test. Obviously testing my information gathering skills. And I obviously messed up at some point. But what was it?"_ It took her a moment before she hesitantly said, "I wasn't paying attention to the little details." He nodded and gestured for her to keep talking. "I noticed a weird look that Kotetsu and Izumo shared, but I thought it was just a quirk or something."

"You didn't _think_ it was a quirk. You _assumed_ it was. That is one of the absolute worst mistakes you can make and it can easily get you killed." She remembered the needle she had been pricked with and nodded. "It was also pretty easy, right?" She nodded, this time with a frown. "That should have been your first clue that something was fishy."

She nodded. "But it just seemed...like it was supposed to be."

He snorted in amusement. "You didn't think you were lucky to find all that information about me in that file, did you?" She chuckled nervously. "Any jounin has an important role in any village. We have access to quite a bit of information and we have clearance to enter quite a few important places, thus the obvious preference for an enemy ninja sent to spy on Konoha to either capture or impersonate. Those records would never have a picture."

"I just thought – " She smiled a bemused smile. "No. I assumed."

He leaned forward and gestured towards the coffee table in between them. "Now that your first lesson is concluded, let's talk about what I will be teaching you.

Sasuke arrived at the clearing to see a man lying down with his head propped up on a small log. He seemed to be asleep, but considering the fact that the guy was probably a jounin, Sasuke knew there was no way to sneak up on him even if he was. The man was wearing the standard jounin outfit with his flak vest unzipped. His hitae-ate was tied around his forehead, propping up the small afro he had. The man opened his eyes as Sasuke approached and waved jovially. "What's up, kid?" Sasuke scowled which only served to make him laugh. He got to his feet with a groan of protest and said, "So you finally found me. Well, I'm your tutor obviously. Let's get started with what you can do now and then we'll make a routine." He dropped into a fighting stance. "Come at me bro." Sasuke smirked before charging forward.

"You called for me Hokage-sama?" The man that walked through the door into the Hokage's office wore the typical jounin ensemble with short sleeves as opposed to the usual long sleeves. He wore his hitae-ate on his forehead, hovering over his brown eyes hidden slightly in the shadows from the rings under his eyes. He had a short scar down the right side of his face next to his mouth which was set in a line holding a hint of a smile.

The Hokage smiled at him and said, "I did. But only because he asked me to." He pointed to the corner where Naruto was sitting impatiently, waiting to make his entrance.

He scowled at the Hokage. "Damn it Hokage-jiji! I was gonna make a really cool entrance." By the end of that sentence, his shoulders had slumped in overly exaggerated disappointment.

The new man chuckled at his antics and said, "Clever little bastard, aren't you?" Naruto smiled cheekily at him. "Well, let's get started, shall we? Come on, we're going to make a schedule for your training first." Naruto nodded at him and they walked out of the room, almost forgetting to say goodbye to the Hokage.

**A/N: There you go. Btw, if anyone cares, those jounin actually exist. Look them up on the wiki. If you do go to the effort of looking them up, you might get a hint of what the three will teach. **

**R&R if you want.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Sorry it took so long, guys. I finally got a job and I've been really focused on that. Updates are probably going to be like this for the foreseeable future, but they will still happen!**

Naruto stared across at the Suna kunoichi, Temari according to the proctor, and let his gaze roam down her body. While his purpose was to analyze her for the upcoming fight, he couldn't help but notice that she was hot, _very _hot. Her battle fan was slung onto her shoulder, sitting next to her neck – a rather shapely neck from what he could glimpse around her hitae-ate. She had a mesh shirt that was peeking out from a very light tan dress that went to just above her knees. The rest of her legs – a rather nice pair with just the right amount of definition and perfectly smooth – were uncovered and led to a pair of basic shinobi sandals. Combined with his observation and the research he had done over the last month, Naruto knew that she was a long range fighter, but she also seemed to be decent at using that fan as a melee weapon as well.

He raised his eyes back to her face and saw that she had an eyebrow raised and wore a smirk on her face – she seemed to have noticed his scrutiny. Naruto waggled his eyebrows in response and smirked himself when she huffed and went back to her typical indifferent visage. It was at this moment that the proctor said, "Hajime!"

Naruto immediately ran through a few hand seals, quite a bit quicker than he would've been able to before this month, and said, "Wind Release: Wind Bullet!" As he finished his hand seals, his hands formed into a circle held at his chest and a moment later, a blast of air rocketed towards Temari. Temari, hearing what technique he was using, sent a gust of wind at him with her fan. The two jutsu canceled each other out and the residual wind brought up a small dust swirl.

The two jumped back a few feet and scrutinized each other once more. Naruto narrowed his eyes at his opponent. _I didn't expect her to be able to react that fast. Either she's stronger than she looks to wield that huge thing so easily or that fan is a hell of a lot lighter – and more fragile – than it looks. _He relaxed his shoulders slightly while keeping his legs tense. Kakashi-sensei had taught them that little trick. According to him, when you visibly relaxed your shoulders, your opponent is likely to unconsciously relax themselves – a useful little trick to throw them off-balance. Naruto made a mental note to thank Kakashi-sensei when he noticed the little trick work.

He smiled over at her and pointed casually at her fan, a movement that caused her to flinch in wariness, and said, "That's a pretty sweet fan. Where'd you get it?"

Shinobi and kunoichi that focused on a particular weapon were always willing to brag about it, and Temari was no exception. "It was custom-made by the greatest fan-smith in the Elemental Nations, Hayabusa Ryu!"

Naruto had no clue who that was, but he forced a visage of slight awe and responded, "Really? That's pretty impressive. I bet it's made out of some super-cool, rare metal that I've never heard of, huh?"

The act was a success as she relaxed once more and laughed. "Nah, nothing that awesome. Just plain old steel. It's got a few seals on it of course, but that's about it."

Naruto had expected to need to probe a little further to attain that information, so he was quite pleased by her response. _That answers that question. If there are seals on that fan, one of them has to be a durability seal, which would compensate for making the fan lighter._ He stood up straighter and saw that his opponent did the same. With a sudden surge of chakra, Naruto blasted forward.

As he expected, Temari immediately opened her fan and blew a wall of wind at him. He had kept his hands near each other for such an occurrence and quickly shot a wind bullet at her. Thanks to his training with Hayama-sensei, he had a good enough proficiency with wind chakra now that he was able to compact this wind-bullet into a smaller sphere. Where the first bullet had been big enough that it had simply canceled out her first wind blast, this one punched an invisible hole in the middle of the wall. Temari's eyes widened but she had no time to react further because Naruto had burst through the gap and an instant later was in her face, fists flying.

Temari, caught by surprise, was forced to backpedal wildly to avoid getting decked by the seemingly wild and uncoordinated punches. After a moment of backpedaling, she was able to get enough room to lower her fan from her shoulder and swing out at him. Naruto was forced to jump back and that gave Temari the time she needed to flip backwards and put even more room between them.

Ino Yamanaka was a proud girl and with good reason in her opinion. She was pretty, smart, and she was the heir to her clan. Her father was always trying to knock her down a peg – "Pride is a ninja's biggest weakness" – but Ino had never really taken the lesson to heart. She sighed and frowned as she sat in her seat at the arena waiting. _Maybe if I'd listened to Daddy, I'd be waiting down there instead of up here_.

She sighed again but was broken from her musing when Chouji and Asuma-sensei sat down next to her. Asuma had made sure that he was not within arm's reach of Ino and immediately took advantage of this to light up a cigarette. Ino scowled at him and smiled at Chouji, saying, "Hey guys! Have any trouble finding me?"

Asuma glanced over at her and smirked, saying, "How could we miss your bright yellow hair?" Ino scowled playfully at him before she smiled slightly. Asuma continued, "You guys talk to Shikamaru much this last month?" Chouji and Ino both shook their heads with a slight frown. "Ah well. I'm sure he'll do just fine. And if he doesn't then that'll mean he gets to take a nap faster." He frowned. "Actually , that's seems far more likely to be his goal."

Ino and Chouji both nodded while Chouji took a moment to say, "So what's the line-up for the matches?"

Asuma sat back and put his feet up on the back of the empty seat in front of him. "Uzumaki and that Suna girl are up first. Should be interesting."

Ino scoffed and crossed her arms. "Unless Kiba was just a fluke."

Chouji nodded sagely and Asuma shrugged in agreement. As the proctor announced the beginning of the first match Asuma finished his cigarette and leaned forward, intent to not miss any of it.

Back on the field, Naruto was now openly grinning with his hands back in his pockets as Temari was staring intently at him, trying to figure him out. Naruto chuckled and said, "Looks like your research didn't help you much, did it?"

Temari relaxed a little but didn't let her guard down. "No. My research led me to believe that this would be easy." Naruto waggled his eyebrows at her and she let out a small grin. "I'm glad it won't be."

Having decided that she was ready for the next barrage, Naruto reached both hands down into his weapons pouch and flung a handful of pellets at Temari. Right afterward he reached right back in and threw two handfuls of shuriken.

Temari saw the pellets coming her way and immediately expanded her fan and swung a wave of wind out in front of her. As soon as the pellets reached the wind attack, instead of sending them away from Temari, the wind caused them to burst and allowed them to expel a large, thick cloud of white smoke. Seeing this, Temari's eyes widened and she went to send another follow-up blast of wind to disperse the smoke. She halted, however, and took cover behind her fan when she heard the sounds of something else whistling through the air. She was glad she did so when a moment after, she heard the sounds of projectiles hitting her fan. Hearing the projectiles stop, she quickly moved from her position and tried to sense where her opponent may be.

In her haste to move from the area, she failed to notice a tell-tale puff of smoke erupt from the shuriken that had hit her fan. When the smoke cleared, all the shuriken had disappeared.

As soon as his smoke pellets went off, Naruto took off on a loop around around the side of the arena where he took cover behind a copse of trees. He knew he had little time while his opponent couldn't see, so he had to act quickly. He immediately made a handful of clones, and they all started making as many clones as they could which then ran in every direction and henged into whatever they could think of that would blend in with the scenery.

That done, he waited a few moments and then sent the clones not henged to go ferret out his opponent.

Temari waited a few more moments before she dispelled the cloud of smoke that was still hanging like a wall in the middle of the arena. She narrowed her eyes when she saw that Naruto had disappeared, but she wasn't surprised. She braced herself for an attack from anywhere. She needed to think of a way to get this fight back under her control.

Before she could come up with an effective strategy, she noticed four narutos were rushing towards her from the left. They were running in a staggered formation and the two in front had just thrown 3 kunai each at her. She mentally scoffed and was about to swing her fan when she noticed that the two in the back had thrown more of those pellets. Instead of swinging her fan she collapsed it and brought it around in front of her to use as a melee weapon. She dodged the kunai, but then there were four narutos swinging at her. One was using a kunai in each hand, one was punching at her with a shuriken held between each finger, and the other two were swinging with just their fists. She rapidly backpedaled, not used to having to deal with so many opponents up close, let alone so many with different weapons all at once.

In a panic, she charged chakra to her legs and jumped in the air as high as she could. She unfolded her fan and put it under her feet so that she could get a moment of respite while she hovered. She heard a grunt and turned her fan around and her eyes widened at seeing Naruto flying towards her. With a glance behind him, she saw a daisy chain of narutos that had apparently swung this one at her. She barely had time to pull out a kunai and block the swipe he made at her with his own kunai. She had already figured out that he definitely had the advantage on her in close combat.

As much as she was loath to do so, she back-flipped off her fan and back down to the ground, scanning it for any sign of a trap beneath her. Seeing none, she gave a sigh as she landed and took a breath to reorient herself. At that moment she felt a kunai press against her throat from behind and a breathy voice whisper in her ear, "And that's the end of that, my dear. There are so many things I'd love to do to you in this position, but you'll have to wait until later for that. You should forfeit before people start to wonder what we're talking about."

Temari nodded slightly and announced, "I forfeit." Once the kunai was removed from her neck, she elbowed the blond behind her hard in the stomach, attempting to retaliate for coming on to her. She was surprised when the Naruto behind her burst into smoke. She turned back around when she heard a cough from in front of her.

The real Naruto was holding her fan out to her. "It really is a beautiful weapon. I'm glad I didn't have to damage it to win. I'd love to hear more about it if you'd be willing." Temari smiled at him as she took it back. "Or we could do other things if that's what you desire." She glared playfully at him and smirked before she walked out of the arena toward the medical center.

If Naruto wasn't so busy basking in the cheers and applause of those in the audience, he would have noticed her hips swaying slightly more than usual.

"What the hell?" Ino was shocked. Like most of her classmates, she had assumed that Naruto's victory over Kiba had been due in part to luck, but mostly due to Kiba's overconfidence. That fight had removed that skepticism entirely.

Chouji was in a like state of mind if the chips drifting out of his open hand were anything to go by. Asuma leaned back and pulled out another cigarette to light up. Taking a puff, he said, "Well, I'll be. That...was incredible." He took another drag from his cigarette. "He was in control from the very beginning. Everything he did in that fight set up that finish. I don't know if Shikamaru would've planned that better."

His two students turned to him with eyebrows raised but he was dead serious. They slowly turned back to watch the next fight.

Kakashi was swelling with pride. His student – the supposed dead-last – had just dominated his first fight in the finals. And Kakashi knew he had barely opened up his can of tricks. From in front of him, the Hokage lit up his pipe and took a puff, saying, "Well done, Kakashi. You've made him proud." They both knew who the Hokage was referring to.

Next to them, the Kazekage said, "Yes, that was indeed impressive. As much as I hate to see my daughter lose, she was most definitely outclassed in that fight. Definitely promotion worthy if that fight wasn't a fluke." The Hokage hummed in agreement and Kakashi smiled again. They looked back to the arena to see the next fight begin.

"Aburame Shino vs. Nara Shikamaru. Hajime!"

**A/N: For those of you who look far too much into this sort of thing, this chapter is not hinting at a naruto/temari romance/pairing at ALL. I haven't even thought about that shit. Because they're 12...Fucking pedophilic perverts, the lot of you.**

**On a more important note, how did you guys like the fight? I'm honestly not too experienced at writing fights so let me know if you guys have any feedback for me.**

**PEACE OUT **


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